US Immigration Law in Politics

Abogado Aly Immigration law in politicsStuart Anderson said, “The surest way to change the law in America is not by lobbying Congress but by convincing enough of the public the laws must be changed.”  When talking about the immigration debate in politics, there seems to be many political pressures felt by  policy makers to make the immigration policies we see today. Political pressures that cause policy, however, are different for every country because of geographical location, wealth, and beliefs and values. For example, in 1924, the United States Congress was forced to establish the U.S. Border Patrol to catch illegal Hispanic immigrants who were trying to run across the border to the United States. This is an example of the United States’ geographic location causing policy change. Canada does not have an illegal immigration problem because it only boarders the United States, so they do not need to put a lot of political resources in containing illegal immigration.

Throughout the history of Immigration Policy in both the United States and Canada, we can see different political pressures that affected both immigration policy. The opposition towards immigration to Canada and the U.S. was borne mostly by the Chinese during the mid to late 19th century. Not only was immigration rising during the mid to late 19th century, but diversity in the immigration groups was also on the increase. There were still English, Irish, and Germans coming into the United States and Canada; however, new ethnic groups, like Hispanics and Asians, were taking advantage of the great opportunities that these countries offered. This brought about a sense of national identity to the already settled natives, and their distrust and dislike for different ethnic groups were becoming greater and greater as the threat of an ethnic takeover was a possibility. What the natives felt threatened by was the different traditions, values, and loyalties that the diverse immigrant population would bring to what the natives  thought was an already great nation. There was even Protestant opposition towards the Catholics; however, there were already too many Catholics groups settled and not a big enough ratio of opposition towards them for legislation to be passed restricting Catholics. The Chinese came to the United States because of the gold rush and they were willing to work for lower wages than the natives. The natives did not feel like this was fair, so with extreme pressure from the West Coast and the Democratic party, the Republican Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

 

 

Canadian Immigration Policy vs. US Immigration Policy

Abogado Aly US immigration policy vs. CanadaAfter the Second World War, Canadian immigration policy became a little less race oriented and geared more toward economic profitability. Finally in 1962, Ellen Fairclough, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration basically eliminated racial discrimination by implementing a new Canadian immigration policy. This new immigration policy stated that if an immigrant wanted to come to Canada and was not sponsored, as long as that immigrant proved his educational skill or quality that seemed desirable for Canada, he or she was allowed to immigrate without racial bias. Whereas the United States took a more humanitarian approach to immigration policy reform in the 1960s, Canada’s immigration reform was geared more towards the economic needs of Canada, as evidenced by its point based system.

This point system was implemented in 1967 where there was no quota for the amount of people who could come into Canada. Instead, anyone who wanted to come into Canada had to take a test which tested immigrants on specific qualities that the Canadian government was looking for. These qualities included language proficiency in English and French (which are Canada’s main languages), whether or not they had a job set up in Canada, whether or not they had family members in Canada, their level of education, and the area of Canada to which they wanted to immigrate too. Just like in the United States, this caused there to be a shift in the type of people who immigrated to Canada from Europeans to Asians.

Finally in 1976, a new Canadian Immigration Act, that Canada still uses today, was implemented. This act separated Canadian immigrants into four separate categories, or as they call them, classes:  a humanitarian class (which included refugees, persecuted or displaced persons), an independent class, a family class, and an assisted relative class. Just like in the United States, Canada implemented a very strong family immigration policy, but what makes Canadian immigration policy different from American immigration policy is the strong emphasis on the independent class which is run by the point system. Canada’s immigration policy therefore is using immigration more for economic profitability purposes, whereas the United States’ seems geared more to a humanitarian or familiar goals. This fundamental difference in immigration policy between the two countries illustrate strong political differences between the two countries which result in differing economic impacts of immigration.

 

 

 

Immigration Law Post World War II

Abogado Aly immigration law reform

Abogado Aly Immigration Law

The passage of the Walter-McCarran Act in 1952 was the next major piece of immigration legislation. This act implemented a quota not on the origins of the U.S. population, but extended the quota to people with high skilled labor that the United States felt like they needed in their labor force. It also set up preferences towards relatives of U.S. residents. This was a fundamental change, implemented by the Truman administration, in immigration policy from national origins to family unification and labor needs. Finally, in 1965, President Kennedy amended the 1952 act as part of the civil rights legislation to completely eliminate the inherent racism in the old immigration policy. This new policy completely eliminated the national origins quota and granted  complete priority to family members of American citizens and other immigrants that had complete U.S. residence. This immigration policy was on a first come first serve basis, and annually allowed no more than 20,000 immigrants per country with a global limit of 290,000 immigrants. Eighty percent of the 290,000 limit were saved for close relatives of American citizens or residents, so it is obvious that family unification was the driving force for the 1965 immigration policy. This preference in family unification caused a decrease in the number of European immigrants and an increase in the number of Asian and Hispanic immigrants. This immigration policy is the policy that the United States has today, and this immigration policy is unique compared to other countries such as Canada, England and Japan.

In Canada, the early history of immigration policy is similar to that of the United States. In the mid to late 19th century, immigration policy in Canada was fairly open only restricting criminals and other extreme undesirables. There were not many immigrants coming to Canada before 1896, so Canada was actively seeking immigrants to tend to their large amounts of land. The Dominion Land Act was then established in 1872 which gave land in northwestern regions of Canada to any male over the age of 18 who in return had to promise to cultivate and take care of that land. At the turn of the century, Canada was trying to obtain low skilled labor to enter their vast agricultural sector in the Northwest region. Frank Oliver, a Canadian politician who represented a vast majority of the Northwest region, implemented the Canadian Immigration Act of 1910 that gave more power to the federal government and prohibited the entry “of immigrants belonging to any race deemed unsuited to the climate or requirements of Canada.” This new immigration policy became even more strict during and after the First World War.  Just like the United States, Canada’s immigration policy at the beginning of the 1920s became increasingly race oriented because of the rising world tensions. Canada’s immigration policy was split up into two groups: the preferred and the non-preferred. Since not many immigrants found incentives to immigrate to Canada, Canada implemented policies to incentivize immigration from England, America, and Western Europe. On the other hand, Canada also implemented numerous policies to keep the so-called “undesirable races,” in the eyes of the Canadians, out of their country.

 

Immigration Law Reform into the 20th Century

Abogado Aly History of Immigration ReformOpposition towards immigration began in the late 19th century as the immigrants coming into the United States (Irish Catholics, Germans, Chinese, Spanish) were ethnically different than the immigrants who had already established themselves (English Protestants). Eventually the opposition became strong enough to create   political pressures that called for immigration restrictions during the early 20th century.

Before 1875 immigration policy was never really discussed by the federal government  because there was nothing about immigration in the constitution. It was in 1875 when the US supreme court ruled that the federal government had complete control over immigration because it was the federal government’s  constitutional duty  to regulate international commerce.[1]  In 1882, the United States implemented its first two laws  to restrict immigration, The Chinese Exclusion Act, which suspended Chinese laborers from immigrating to the United States, and forced Chinese non-laborers to obtain authorization from their government. Second, Congress enacted and the President signed the Immigration Act which banned “convicts, prostitutes, lunatics, idiots, and those likely to become a public charge”[2] from entering the United States.  Up until the 1920s, a few more immigration laws were passed restricting the number of Japanese, Chinese, and women; even a Bureau of Immigration was established in 1891. The third wave of immigration was a period of the heaviest immigration to the United States, so the political pressures were mounting for a change in policy.

In the 1920s the Quota Law of 1921 and the Immigration Act of 1924 were implemented. These laws were significant in reducing the overall amount of immigration and skewed immigration towards the already settled immigrants of Britain, Ireland and other parts of northwestern Europe.[3] The Quota Law of 1921 legislated a maximum number of immigrants allowed per year. This maximum was limited at “three percent of the number of foreign-born persons of that nationality who lived in the United States in 1910”[4]. For example, if there were 100,000 immigrants from Ireland already in the United States, then only 3000 Irish people were allowed to immigrate to the United States that year. The Immigration Act of 1924 went a step further and reduced the number of foreign born to two percent for a three-year period while reducing its base year from 1910 to 1890.[5] This reduced the previous quota by half, and skewed the number of immigrants towards Irish, English, and German immigrants basically eliminating immigration from southern and eastern Europe. In 1929, immigration laws tightened again, reducing the quota even further and used the entire American population as its basis for ethnic origins causing there to be smaller percentages of immigrants from specific countries who were allowed into the United States.  By the end of the 1920s, immigration flow fell drastically from about 1 million per year to between 200,000 to 300,000 per year.[6] These quotas were implemented for the Eastern Hemisphere, whereas there was no real need for a quota on the Western Hemisphere because there was such a small amount of immigration from the West at this time.

Bureaucracy Laws Impede Immigration and Silicon Vally Growth

Abogado Aly Immigration LawImmigrating to the United States of America is not made easy by all of the laws an bureaucracies put in place. Many people in the United States are against amnesty and other forms of citizenship that allow illegal immigrants to stay in the United States. Their rational being that if the illegal immigrants want to stay in the United States, they should apply for a visa and wait until they are legally approved. This makes sense at first glance, but within the constructs of the law is an extremely untimely bureaucratic process that gives immigrants little hope of living legally in the United States anytime soon.

A recent study done by Forbes suggests that a computer programer from India has to wait 35 years, on average, if they want to live “legally” in the United States. Someone from Mexico with a high school diploma has to wait an average of 130 years! Complex rules and regulations are creating a difficult situation for both immigrants and the United States.

Studies show that immigrants make up most of the founders in Silicon Valley as they invent things twice as fast as native-born Americans. A lot of Sillicon Vally tech startups are feeling handcuffed by the US immigration policy as it becomes increasingly difficult to hire highly skilled immigrants. The tech startup industry is all about speed and efficiency. The US immigration process is too slow for the hiring processes of these growing startups, which limits their hiring abilities and thus limits competition.

Low skill and high skill is not a factor in the start-up rat race. Labor is a spectrum where all levels of labor are needed to keep up in the industry. These startup companies are hoping that the immigration laws become more relaxed so that they can hire who they need to hire.

 

 

A History of the United States Immigration Policy

Abogado Aly Immigration History“What do the American people want immigration to do for the United States”[1]? According to George Borjas, one of the leading labor economists who specialize in immigration issues, this should be the fundamental question in the modern immigration debate. Technically, everyone who now lives in the United States has some ancestor that immigrated to the United States from abroad and there was a point in time where there was no immigration policy. As the United States became wealthier and wealthier, an immigration policy became necessary to keep overpopulation and major wealth divisions from happening. Typically, when policy makers of the world focus on the immigration debate, they seem to use economics as their main basis for policy change. This is how immigration policy is implemented in most countries. If immigration were to make the native people economically worse off, why wouldn’t a country impose a strict immigration policy? On the other hand, if immigration were to make the native population economically better off, why wouldn’t a country impose a more lose immigration policy? This paper will describe the political forces in Canada and the United States that led to their different historic approaches to immigration, and then analyze their respective current policies in both political and economic terms.

The United States is a nation of immigrants. During the colonial era, from 1607 to 1820, a little less than one million people arrived and settled in the United States which comprised of about 600,000 Europeans, about 300,000 African slaves, and a small mix of Scots, Irish, Dutch, Germans, Swedes, and French.[2] This was considered the first wave of immigration to the United States. The second wave occurred from the years between 1840 and 1870 where about 15 million immigrants entered the country. Most of the immigrants came from Ireland (because of the Irish Potato Famine) and Germany while some Spanish speakers were coming through the southwest region and Chinese laborers were coming to California (because of the California gold rush).[3] The third wave of immigration, during the years between 1880 and 1920, was really when immigration opposition began and the need for an immigration policy became apparent. During the third wave, there were about 25 million immigrants. Most came in from England, Ireland, and Germany; but this time around, there was an abundance of immigrants coming in from southern and eastern Europe: Italy, Poland, Greece, Russia, Hungry, and other smaller nations.[4] Immigration public policy was marginally discussed by the mid-19th century. There were minimal attempts to keep criminals and other extreme undesirables out, but other than that, immigration did not affect people’s lives enough for there to be public discussion about it.

 

[1]George J Borjas, Heaven’s Door: Immigration Policy and the American Economy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1999) xvi.

[2] John Isbister, The Immigration Debate: Remaking America (West Hartford, CT: Kumarian, 1996)32.

[3] Isbister 32.

[4] Isbister 32.

 

Immigration Flooding the United States due to Policy Inaction

Abogado Aly ImmigrationA recent article on Real Clear Politics discusses the consequences suffered by Obamas inaction on immigration reform. While speaking at political fundraisers last week in Texas, Obama refused to take photographs on the border. The Obama administration decided to focus on the stimulus package, Obamacare, and global warming initiatives instead of immigration.

This lead to a flood of underage immigration because parents wanted to get their children across the boarder before it was too late. In June of 2012, Obama declared that he would not enforce immigration regulations on young adults brought across the border before a certain time. This was considered popular in the Hispanic voting community, as deporting high school kids going to college was not a popular move among any voters. This added to the influx of underage immigration.

The House Republicans refuse to pass any immigration law that gives Obama the decision on how to enforce the law. They also want a provision that includes the deportation of underage immigrants from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.

Because of this recent litigation, immigrants are sending their children over to the United States so that they can stay there permanently. One residents in Latin America hear of any law allowing them to cross the boarder, a surge of immigrants will be inevitable. Because of this surge, the immigration debate has moved from legalization towards enforcing deportation.

Whereas countries like Canada and Australia have immigration laws that focus on high skilled workers, the United States has immigration laws that focus more on extending families. This makes it difficult to focus on attaining high-skilled immigrants.

This blog post is based off of this article from Real Clear Politics.

Immigration Law Passed to Curb Child Trafficking

Abogado Aly on Child ImmigrationIn a recent article by the New York Times, an immigration law has just been recently passed to curb child trafficking. One of the last things that George W. Bush did as president was sign one final piece of legislation. “This is a piece of legislation we’re very proud to sign”  White House spokesman, Tony Fratto, told to reporters on December 23, 2008 as the president signed the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008. This program was named after the 19th century British abolitionist  and the program will be very effective around the world in trying to stop trafficking.

The legislation following through into the Obama administration, might be the reason for the recent flow of unaccompanied minors at the nation’s southern border. It was recently pushed by a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers as well as by evangelical groups to combat sex trafficking. This bill gave great new protections to children entering the country unattended who were not from Mexico or Canada by not allowing them to be quickly sent back to their home country. Instead of the sending these children back to their countries of origin, they would be given the opportunity to appear in an immigration hearing and have the ability to consult with an advocate and have access to a counsel. In addition, it is also required of them to be turned over to the Department of Health and Human Services and the agency was directed to place the minor in “the least restrictive setting that is in the best interest of the child.” The Obama administration explains they were to blame for the influx of children and they want to seek flexibility in the laws requirements when it comes to asking congress about providing emergency funds to deal with the latest immigrations crisis. However, democrats have shown reluctance to accept and support narrow immigration law changes. At the end of the day, according to Wendy Young the president of Kids in Need of Defense, she believe that there is no recognition that these kids are vulnerable moving across international borders alone. It will be interesting to see if the current administration can find a fix to this issue of child migration.

This blog post was written about this New York Times article.

Immigration Reform Needs Some Work

Abogado Aly Immigration ReformIn 2013, the Department of Homeland Security deported 368,644 immigrants from the United States at a rate of 1,010 people a day.

In the past, President Obama has trained Homeland Security to only target criminal immigrants who are a threat to the public and national security. This is not the case; however, since the number of immigrants deported last year would be an astonishing amount of felons. There were multiple immigrants deported for a simple traffic violation or misdemeanor. In New York, immigrants have been turned in for open container violations or sleeping in the subway. Because of this, the private detention centers that Homeland Security uses to house potential deport is pact to the brim with immigrants waiting for their removal hearings. Despite the ridiculous amount of mistreatment and poor conditions, the US Government has shown no sign in easing up on these allegations.

A recent study by a policy organization at Syracuse University discovered that persecutions for illegal reentry, which are classified as a felony, are rising even though prosecutions for illegal entry, which are classified as a petty misdemeanor, are falling. This is exactly why it was so disappointing to hear that the White House was going to delay their review of Homeland Security’s deportation policies for two months because Obama is trying to impress the Republicans at the House of Representatives.

The federal government also has a Secure Communities program that immediately captures people fingerprints at the time of their arrest, regardless of weather or not they have been convicted or charged with any crimes. This makes it a lot harder for the US government to capture real immigrant felons when they are relying on a database of 32 million individuals who may or may not be criminals.

Detainers are asked to keep immigrants incarcerated after their state or local charges have been revoked or their sentences expired so that the ICE has time to transfer them straight to federal custody. In the past couple of years, the City Council has passed laws that keep the Correction Department from honoring detainers except if the target person is a felon, committed a serious misdemeanor, seen on a terror watch list, has been previously deported, or meets other criteria. Today, lawyers estimate that the city enforces about 2/3 of ICE’s detainer requests.